Stuart Woods: Hothouse Orchid

“I understand,” Holly said. “Thank you.”

He turned and walked back toward his car.

“It’s okay, Daisy,” Holly said, locking the door behind her. “He was a friend.”

Daisy relaxed.

Holly got a kitchen knife, cut the packing tape and removed the item. It was smaller than the one she’d trained with at the Farm, about the same size as a personal digital assistant, with a small LCD screen on top and a keyboard at the bottom. It could have been mistaken for a calculator. A wire ran from its base, ending in two very small alligator clips.

The box also held a sheet of folded paper. She opened it to find six photographs. A title read: “Six most widely used electronic locks,” and there were arrows drawn, showing where the wires should be connected. Also in the box was a small pair of wire stripper/cutters.

She put everything back in the box, closed it and locked it in her small office, then went back to the kitchen, put the coffeepot on and began making breakfast.

She had gotten lucky the day before; was she going to be lucky enough again to find Jack Smithson out of his house? She had a feeling this was going to take a stakeout, and she hated stakeouts.

She ate her breakfast while glancing through the paper, then showered and dressed, slipping on a pair of rubber-soled loafers. Then she took the box from her office, called Daisy, got into her car and drove to Vero Beach.

Teddy Fay packed and sealed the two cardboard boxes, put them into the trunk of his car and locked the front door to his house. He got into the car and drove out from the driveway, turning north on A-1A, headed for the airport.

Holly had been sitting in her car, a block to the south, for less than an hour when she saw Smithson’s silver Toyota pull out of the driveway. She waited for a while, until he had driven away from her, then started her car and turned into his driveway. She had been here before, for dinner, and she remembered seeing the driveway sensor planted just inside the entrance. She checked again to be sure that it was still there. It would give her a warning if he returned.

She checked the second hand on her Rolex as she passed the entrance, then drove down the narrow road to the guesthouse at a normal pace. She drove past the little house, checking her watch; just over a minute. She drove behind the house and parked so that the car was headed toward the beach but concealed from the drive by the house.

She left the engine running, tucked the box under her arm, then went to the front door and picked the lock. Leaving her shoes on the porch, she went directly to the study and opened the closet door that concealed the big safe. Using the sharp end of the wire stripper/ cutter, she popped off the cover of the electronic lock, exposing the battery and the electronics, then she opened the box, retrieved the combination resolver and unfolded the sheet of photographs.

She compared the photos to the lock on the safe and immediately saw the correct one. Then she took the wire strippers and cut through the insulation on the two wires indicated on the photograph. She pushed back the insulation an eighth of an inch and attached an alligator clip, then did the same on the other wire. That done, she switched on the resolver. A message appeared: “How many digits?”

She looked on top of the safe, saw a yellow pamphlet and picked it up. It was the instructions for changing the combination for the safe. Of course, one needed the original, five-digit combination to change it, but all she needed was the number of digits. She entered 5 into the resolver.

A stream of numbers began scrolling up the LCD display, and at the top, a clock, indicating the time required to try all possible six-digit combinations for the lock: an hour and six minutes, and counting. That was the maximum length of time; the resolver might hit the right combination at any moment.

She set the instrument on top of the safe and had another look around the study. She tried the computer again, hoping he had left it on, but as it booted up, it required a password again. She shut it off and began going through the desk drawers again, finding only a telephone book. She imagined that Smithson kept his personal phone book on the computer.

Teddy was admitted through the airport gate and drove out to his airplane. He stowed the two boxes in the luggage compartment, then, using a 12-volt hair dryer, stripped the old registration numbers from the aircraft and affixed the new ones. The task had taken less than half an hour. He got back into the car and headed home.

Holly was startled by a sudden, electronic beep. The driveway sensor! She went to grab the resolver and heard a noise from the safe, the bolts opening. The beep had signaled only that the resolver had found the combination. She checked the clock: it had stopped on 83220 after fifty-one minutes.

Holly detached the alligator clips from the lock and replaced the cover, then she packed the resolver, instructions and wire strippers back into the box. Finally, she turned the wheel that opened the safe; the final bolt retracted smoothly, and swung the door open. As she did, lights came on inside the safe. On the top shelf was a stack of money about two inches high. There was nothing else in the safe.

She picked up the stack of bills and riffed through it: hundreds, fifties, twenties and tens-several thousand dollars, she guessed. Then she noticed that behind the stack of bills was a single bullet: she picked it up and looked at it. A military-issue,.223 cartridge. She replaced it on the shelf, put the stack of bills in front of it again, just as she had found it, then closed the door of the safe and turned the wheel to relock it.

She tucked her box under her arm again and closed the closet door, then left the house and locked the front door behind her. As she did, she heard an electronic chime from inside the house: the driveway sensor. She glanced at her watch.

She grabbed her shoes and ran down the porch toward her car. She vaulted over the railing, landing as far as she could from the porch, since there was no time to brush away her tracks.

She leapt into the idling car, slammed it into gear and eased her way through the sand. The four-wheel-drive Cayenne managed nicely, and when the sand firmed up a bit, she accelerated toward the ocean. As soon as she crossed the high-water mark and reached the damp, firm sand, she turned right and raced south along the beach. She looked over her shoulder, back toward the guesthouse, and found it obscured by trees on the property next door.

She checked her watch again: thirty-five seconds. He would not have seen her as he drove up to the house. She had been very lucky.

As soon as Holly got home, she taped up the resolver in its box, then let herself into her office, fired up her computer and called Lance.

“Yes?” he said, as his face appeared on the screen.

“It’s Holly. I did the job on the safe, and it was empty, except for a stack of money-several thousand dollars-and a single.223 cartridge.”

“Why would anyone own a large safe and have only that in it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s clearing out.”

“Has he given you any indication of that?”

“No.”

“You say he owns an airplane?”

“Yes.”

“Look him up in the federal aircraft registry, then check the airplane to see if it has the correct tail number. If he has changed it in the computer, it might not match the numbers on the airplane.”

“Oh, all right, Lance. By the way, I’m supposed to report any large purchase to you, am I not?”

“Yes. What are you buying?”

“I’ve bought an airplane, and I’ll be flying it back to Manassas.”

“What sort of airplane?”

“A Piper Malibu Mirage.”